X

Refreshing: Yahoo's mobile home page cutting back on reloads

Yahoo reveals an enhanced mobile home page that offers more stories that require you to reload the Web page fewer times.

Jessica Dolcourt Senior Director, Commerce & Content Operations
Jessica Dolcourt is a passionate content strategist and veteran leader of CNET coverage. As Senior Director of Commerce & Content Operations, she leads a number of teams, including Commerce, How-To and Performance Optimization. Her CNET career began in 2006, testing desktop and mobile software for Download.com and CNET, including the first iPhone and Android apps and operating systems. She continued to review, report on and write a wide range of commentary and analysis on all things phones, with an emphasis on iPhone and Samsung. Jessica was one of the first people in the world to test, review and report on foldable phones and 5G wireless speeds. Jessica began leading CNET's How-To section for tips and FAQs in 2019, guiding coverage of topics ranging from personal finance to phones and home. She holds an MA with Distinction from the University of Warwick (UK).
Expertise Content strategy, team leadership, audience engagement, iPhone, Samsung, Android, iOS, tips and FAQs.
See full bio
Jessica Dolcourt
2 min read

Article updated at 2:50 pm PT with more details.

Yahoo Mobile home page
Yahoo's mobile home page gets pagination to show off multiple headlines without refreshing as often. Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET

Last spring's CTIA Wireless conference saw Yahoo majorly refresh its m.yahoo.com home page for mobile visitors. At Wednesday's keynote talk, David Ko, Yahoo's senior vice president of Mobile, unveiled a refresh of that redo.

Most significantly, Yahoo includes pagination on the landing page, which imparts access to Yahoo's top story headlines and movie posters without having to reload the page. As on the iPhone, dots at the bottom of the news or RSS module indicate how many more "pages" await. You'll still need to reload pages to read the full text stories.

Yahoo has also fleshed out its RSS reader to display photos with their captions, and includes the capability to scroll through your favorites feed without having to stop to refresh the page.

Video is a hot topic in mobile, and Yahoo wisely promotes its own shows on the mobile page, in addition to a video playlist that makes use of thumbnail images instead of just text, as in the previous version. Also in the entertainment vein, Yahoo's enhanced mobile site displays movie play times near you. As with previous versions, movie trailers and Yahoo and Rotten Tomatoes reviews are viewable, and you can also buy tickets through a partnership wit MovieTickets.com.

The initial home page overhaul last April must be working. Yahoo reports "a fivefold increase" from this April redo. Yahoo further reports that the use of its mobile site has more than tripled from August 2007 to August 2009.

Yahoo's refreshed mobile home page is available now in 32 markets.

During his keynote, Yahoo's Ko also touched upon Yahoo's mobile strategy, which has become more focused on partnerships. In other words, gathering together a suite of Yahoo and non-Yahoo suites and services for visitors to Yahoo's site. This seems to return Yahoo to its original role as an Internet portal.

Ko also discussed the app store success of three focused, cross-platform mobile applications for Blackberry and iPhone: the Fantasy football, Flickr, and finance apps launched last month.

Mobile Guides

Phones
Foldable Phones
Headphones
Mobile Accessories
Smartwatches
Wireless Plans
Mobile coupons